August 15, 2012 – Ice Cream Soda Day
by mmooch
Summary: **Part of the 2012 LiveJournal's Twisted Shorts August Fic-A-Day** series, also known as the 'Wacky Holiday Series'. Bored out of her mind, Buffy meets a 'normal' family while on vacation out East.


**August 15, 2012 – ****Ice Cream Soda Day**

Summary: **Part of the 2012 LiveJournal's Twisted Shorts August Fic-A-Day** series, also known as the 'Wacky Holiday Series'. Bored out of her mind, Buffy meets a 'normal' family while on vacation out East.

Challenge: for the livejournal 2012 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.

Warning: character death.

Timeline: post-season 3 for BtVS; post-season 6 for GP, but change the dates so they line up.

A/N: AU Buffy spent a lot longer in the hospital than previously thought.

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. Growing Pains characters belong to Neal Marlens and Warner Bros. Television. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

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**Huntington, New York**

Buffy had been looking forward to her last summer vacation before college started. Her mom was even taking her to New York. Yeah…she didn't mention it was Huntington, not Manhattan. She was less than 40 miles from the Big Apple, but couldn't go there until her mother finished whatever art buying crap she came here for because apparently not even the fact she was a Slayer made Joyce comfortable with the idea of her baby girl being alone in the city that never sleeps.

So she sounded kind of whiny; they were in New York for three days total and she had been stuck in this town for two of them already.

Well, since she could only go around Huntington, she decided to find a place to get a burger. She was lucky; there was an old-fashioned diner that was celebrating Ice Cream Soda Day and was offering their sodas for a quarter with the purchase of a sandwich and fries.

She sat down at a two-person table near the window; one of the only open tables left in the restaurant and waited for the waitress to take her order. Then she waited for her food to arrive.

At the table next to her was a Norman Rockwell-looking family. Two parents, two boys and two girls…all that was missing was a golden retriever and the picture would be complete. It didn't take long for the older boy to notice her and start flirting. His name was Mike Seaver and he introduced the rest of his family as Jason (dad), Maggie (mom), Carol (sister), Ben (brother) and Chrissy (baby sister).

Since she was bored, Buffy allowed herself to be dragged to their table to join them to eat together. They were pretty normal…for the most part.

Okay, so the fact that he was a stay-at-home psychologist dad who saw patients in his study was a little strange, but nothing real earth-shattering. The mom worked as a journalist…cool for her. Mike was into acting, Carol was an honor student and Ben was a smart aleck…all still normal.

It was when they started talking about Chrissy that her Slaydar started perking up. As far as Buffy could tell from the photos Maggie insisted on showing her, Chrissy had been just under two years old the previous October. The problem? She was almost seven years old currently. Even stranger was that none of the Seavers thought it was a problem that the baby gained 4-5 years practically overnight.

So she flirted a bit with Mike to be sure that he gave her his phone number and address in case she wanted to get together later, then ran back to her hotel room to call Giles for help.

He found there was a species of demon called of all things BroodCuckoo that looked for families with young babies where there was a huge gap between them and the next youngest child – preferably ten years or more – and assumed the identity of the baby. It wasn't sure why they would do this, but the imposter baby would have sudden age spurts which nobody in or around the family would notice. Then when the imposter reached its maturity, the family would 'disappear…the apparent victims of a tragic accident'.

Chrissy's maturity would probably happen within a couple years or so.

Which meant Buffy had to choose whether to let it happen or kill a creature that looked like an adorable little girl.

At least Giles had a test she could do on Chrissy to be sure she was one of those demons.

Of course the test was positive, which meant Buffy had to kill little Chrissy. Oh, she was going to have nightmares about this for years!

She waited until the family was fast asleep, then crawled into the upstairs window for Chrissy's bedroom and killed the demon child before she could lose her nerve. Thank goodness the blood was sky blue, which removed any remaining doubt Buffy had buried way deep down inside.

The next day, she happened to run into Mike again and was surprised he wasn't in mourning or anything. When she asked about his family – specifically his sister – he said they were all good, and that Carol was just as ugly as ever. With a few more questions, she determined that he didn't remember having a second sister at all. That was good news for her.

Still, she was never so happy to hear her mom say they had to get back to Sunnydale and that they'd try to go to New York City on the next trip. Buffy desperately needed to get back to the Hellmouth and leave the 'normal' suburban life behind her.

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A/N: Sorry Chrissy-lovers, but whenever they have Rapid Aging Syndrome on a show, I have to wonder… Soap Operas are the worst when it comes to this.

I tried to look up the bird that does something similar but couldn't find it and I was running out of time. If anyone knows, please tell me and I'll make up the demon species to be something similar to the bird species.

EDIT: Thanks to NyxxNoxx for the bird species. It's not a very demony name, but my mind is kinda fried at the moment.


End file.
